{"id":13904,"date":"2026-01-15T00:00:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/?p=13904"},"modified":"2026-01-15T11:24:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T11:24:30","slug":"plasticulture-in-latin-america-milestones-challenges-and-the-path-toward-environmental-sustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/plasticulture-in-latin-america-milestones-challenges-and-the-path-toward-environmental-sustainability\/","title":{"rendered":"Plasticulture in Latin America: milestones, challenges, and the path toward environmental sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>AUTHOR : <\/b><em>H. F. Castell\u00f3n Petrovich, CIDAPA\u2019s President and CIPA\u2019s Vice chairman<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><b><\/b><strong>Presented at the 11th International Conference on Technology &amp; Applications of Biodegradable, Compostable, and Biobased Plastics (ICTABP11) held in Beijing in November 2025, the original conference provides a comprehensive look at the evolution of plasticulture in Latin America. This article summarises the key points. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Global and regional context of plasticulture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Plasticulture &#8211; the application of plastics in agriculture &#8211; has transformed food production worldwide. From early low-cost greenhouses in the U.S.A. (Emery Emmert, 1946) to drip irrigation in Israel (Simcha Blass, 1965) and China\u2019s intensive plastic\u2011assisted agriculture from 1978 onward, plasticulture milestones have supported agriculture\u2019s intensification, particularly in harsh climates.<\/p>\n<p>Worldwide adoption varies widely: Asia dominates both protected crops and mulching, followed by Europe, Latin America, and North America. Latin America alone accounts for 126,000 hectares of protected crops and over 580,000 hectares of mulched crops, demonstrating the sector\u2019s significant regional footprint.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Environmental sustainability challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Plasticulture faces many challenges, but the most important are climate change and environmental sustainability, followed by the increase in the world population, water scarcity, the need to develop agriculture with less pesticides, the scarcity of agricultural soils, and the shortage of labour in the field.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mepr_error\"><div class=\"zx-content-lock\">\n<div class='zx-dummy-content''>\n<p>There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don't look even slightly believable. 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The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"zx-content-lock-message\">\n<h6>Want to read more?<\/h6>\n<div>Full articles starting at \u20ac7.80\/month or buy juste one article at 1\u20ac<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/register\/one-time-read-plasticulture-in-latin-america-milestones-challenges-and-the-path-toward-environmental-sustainability\/\">Pay 1\u20ac to read<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"zx-offer-box\">\n<div class=\"zx-offer-box-top\">\n<p>Get full access to all articles<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"zx-offer-box-bottom\">\n<div class=\"zx-offer-box-bottom-left\">\n<p class=\"zx-offer-cost\"><span class=\"zx-of-price\">From \u20ac7.80<\/span>\/<span class=\"zx-of-duration\">monthly<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"zx-offer-box-bottom-right\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/subscription\/\">Subscribe Now<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AUTHOR : H. F. Castell\u00f3n Petrovich, CIDAPA\u2019s President and CIPA\u2019s Vice chairman Presented at the 11th International Conference on Technology<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-13904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-regulations"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13904"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13945,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13904\/revisions\/13945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cipa-plasticulture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}